Fic: Butterfly In Reverse (3/3)

[hitlikehammers]

Title: Butterfly In Reverse
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 8,805
Summary: It’s not fair that Jack always has to lose what he loves, and Ianto is going to fix it. Post-Exit Wounds, mild crossover with Doctor Who. Spoilers for Torchwood S1, S2; Doctor Who S1, mild S3.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. All recognizable elements of Torchwood and Doctor Who are copyright to RTD and the BBC; the title is borrowed from the Counting Crows song of the same name.
Author's Notes: Written for hugglewolf for thestopwatch Fic Exchange. Given the prompts (only one of which I really managed to stick to) this was the only thing I could manage to get anything going with. Completely not my style, and it sort of became something of a monster as I went, but so it goes. Rather extremely out of character, as well, considering - I am not sure a story of this sort can actually be in-character in this fandom, but like I said - I couldn’t seem to get rid of the idea, and figured it better to get it out at all costs, rather than let it distract me any further.



Part III

The opportunities Ianto had missed in which he’d wanted to tell Jack , meant to tell Jack, or had downright threatened himself with unthinkable consequences if he didn't tell Jack about his newly-acquired longevity were too many to count - he liked to tell himself they numbered somewhere in around the thirties, but if he were honest, it was something upwards of a hundred.

He felt terrible after each evening they spent together, which was increasingly becoming every evening as the days drew on, Jack growing more and more accustomed to Ianto’s constant presence, and Ianto drinking in the ability to spend lazy, common hours with the man he loved just simply being with one another - no flash, no pomp, no life-saving or risk-taking; just the two of them, back to chest, chest to chest, and everywhere in between, in all states of undress, and sometimes fully clothed, living life with one another in a way that Ianto had never quite dared to hope for. And it was that which made it bearable - for whenever he felt consumed by guilt for keeping his secret from Jack, for being too weak to simply say it, he fell back upon the absolute bliss that came along with being in Jack’s company, and wagered that it was an even trade.

But it couldn’t keep going on like this. He couldn’t continue keeping something this big, this life-altering, from Jack. He couldn’t manage it. He didn’t think he could keep hiding from him like this, keep staring him in the eyes and seeing the sheen of reluctance, the twinge of fear even in the most perfect of moments, glazing their most precious memories with the terror of future loss. He couldn’t bear the way Jack mourned everyone - couldn’t bear the way Jack mourned him - when he was still standing right before him. He couldn’t live with himself, couldn’t keep Jack feeling so alone when he wasn’t; when he wouldn’t be, not ever.

And so, walking purposefully into the corner shop he often frequented before work, Ianto decided that today would be the day. Barring the apocalypse, he was going to tell Jack the truth, from the very beginning. He didn’t care if he single-handedly had to neuter the entire Weevil population, he was going to do it. He was going to grow a backbone, he was going to swallow his fear and he was going to finish this charade of finitude, once and for all.

Feeling strangely good about his decision, he browsed the shelves, grabbing at some coffee beans that were on sale and would satisfy Gwen’s generally undiscerning tastes, knocking a roll of dark chocolate HobNobs into his shopping basket for Jack’s snacking pleasure, eventually making his way to the checkout feeling lighter, as if a weight was slowly lifting from his shoulders, from his lungs; his heart.

He greeted the young girl manning the register with a genuine smile, pushing a £20 note thoughtlessly across the smooth surface of the counter as he steeled himself, coached himself mentally on how to tell Jack, how to stage the conversation, where to place it, whether or not to just come out and say it, or to casually lead up to it, break it gently. He didn’t even notice when his change was handed back to him, only the rustle of his bag of items, coupled with the ring of the door as it opened to another patron rousing him from his feverish contemplation.

He thanked the girl, distracted but with another smile, confused by the look of horror on her face as he turned to the door. He shrugged it off, losing the debate of whether to inquire as to its origin - there were some strange types about, and he didn’t have the time to get involved today. He spun on his heel, and the misplaced glint of metal at the corner of his vision made him reach for his gun; the reassuring cold that he never left home without - he was staring down the barrel of a firearm, larger but much less sophisticated than his own; and immediately, everything was very slow, very clear.

One shot, two, and a torrential rain that followed, bullet after bullet tearing into him - the crush of his purchases falling to the floor the last thing he heard besides the echo, the shot to his chest and his head seeming to come in tandem as he felt the pain, and then absolutely nothing as he fell to the floor, his body sliding a bit at the impact upon the blood that was already pooling beneath him.

He was going to tell Jack today. Suddenly, the choice had been taken out of his hands.

--------------------------------------------------

“Andy, what are you going on about?”

Jack grinned to himself for a moment, musing on Gwen’s antics, her trademark banter as he watched her hand shift on the phone, her fingers twirl in her hair and she spun back and forth in her chair, wondering at how much more stunning that accent sounded in Ianto’s voice than in hers...

“Andy, you know we don’t deal with petty theft.”

Speaking of whom, Jack thought, leaning up against the divider near Gwen’s workstation; Ianto was late. Ianto was rarely late, if ever - in fact, only months before, Jack would have already been on alert had Gwen made it to work before Ianto. Yet, over the course of the past months, Jack had managed to convince him that his presence, while preferable, was not a matter worthy of his stress or concern. Since they’d been spending more time together - a fact that Jack was more than pleased about - Ianto had managed to come into work almost a full hour late on a total of nine separate occasions; once, Jack had even convinced him to sleep past noon in his own quarters - he’d lured Gwen out on a harmless diversion involving unregistered alien activity in an unspecified location to the north, leading her on something of a wild goose chase before lunch whilst he slowly, gloriously woke a naked Ianto from his sated slumber.

“No, Andy, you listen. We don’t have time for some sick cunt who decided to go on a mini killing spree at the local grocery!”

Jack frowned at that - he didn’t like death, particularly not when it was senseless - when it wasn’t him. But food... sometimes Ianto was creative when he came in late - he occasionally brought a bit of a specialty brew and made Jack something even nicer than usual, or picked him up some biscuits as a treat. It was the little things, Jack had deduced long ago, that had made him fall for the young Welshman against his own better judgement. The way he spoke, his diction and word choice, his intelligence, his wit, his edge, his charm, the way he held a cup of coffee, the sound he made in his throat when he came, the way his breath felt against Jack’s skin, the way he touched him, the honest care, and consideration he showed Jack that was more than what was expected, more than what he had to give, even more than what he might want to give - he gave more than anyone had ever given Jack, more than he deserved, and he gave it unselfishly, with his whole heart.

And it was that more than anything, that had captured Jack’s heart in return.

“Oi, none of that, Andy. That’s not funny.”

There was a note of urgency in Gwen’s tone, a shrillness that wasn’t always there. It struck something in him, something vital and needy, something that had been battling to get out for far too long.

“Andy, I mean it. Cut it out.”

It wasn’t just convenience with Ianto. It wasn’t just simple or casual or temporary. For the first time in ages, Jack felt the inclination to give himself to someone, to tell someone everything, to share his whole world, everything he’d ever been, with a finite person - to show them his soul, and trust them not to run away, trust them to embrace it, to embrace him, with arms that didn’t judge, that didn’t hate, that didn’t fear him, but that wanted him, cared for him - dare he even hope for it, but arms that loved him.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been loved for everything he was, for the entire person he’d been and become, and that was a weight he’d carried around for far too long, one that was beginning to crush him from the inside out.

“I will do just that, Mr. Davidson. And you’ll see...”

Gwen was typing wildly, and the rapidity was contagious. Questions, doubts began assaulting Jack’s consciousness - would this be any different from the past? Would Ianto, open-minded and kind-hearted as he was, still be able to care for him at all after he knew the truth? Was Jack willing to lose what he had with Ianto, in the hopes of gaining something more, something stronger? Was he willing to take that kind of risk, the likes of which he hadn’t been inclined to wager since before he’d met the Doctor?

“No.”

Yes...

“No, Andy. No.”

Gwen’s voice kept filtering through, but all Jack cared about was the ‘No.’ No, Ianto wouldn’t reject him. Ianto wouldn’t; he wasn’t that sort of person. Ianto was a caring man, a better man than most - and he would never cast Jack aside for simply being honest. Of that much, Jack was certain.

“Well, if you were there then -”

Ianto would be there, Ianto would help him, just like he always did. His shoulder to lean on, to cry on; his rock. His beautiful, beloved Ianto.

“It wasn’t.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a serious consideration.

“No. No, it can’t have been.”

He was in love. Jack Harkness was in love with Ianto Jones, and he was finally going to own up to it.

“Where are you?”

Here and now, as soon as Ianto got in, he was going to admit it. He was going to shout it. He was going to kiss the life out of him, and then he was going to say it out loud, real and tangible for the whole world to hear and know, without any room for questioning or deliberation - nothing but the solid, concrete, absolute truth. Jack loved him.

And he was going to tell him. Today.

“Give us ten. We’ll be there. Don’t... don’t move him, Andy. Don’t let them do anything.”

Gwen siphoned through to his thoughts again, this time because her voice was strained, sorrowful. She sounded as if she were fighting tears - and it was only just morning, which was always a bad sign. Curious, Jack shifted his attention, though not without effort, his mind still conjuring vivid scenes of romantic abandon that he would finally be able to fabricate into reality with Ianto once he’d told him the truth, cleared the air and moved on, moved forward...

“His next of kin... Jack’s listed as his next of kin.”

The world stopped spinning, cracking along its axis as Jack’s fantasies shattered, the shards slicing through his mind, his very soul, as the words made sense, as the implications began to sink in; as everything came together. Killing. Torchwood. The two of them here. One missing. The only one that mattered.

“I... just wait. Let us get there.”

Jack was only listed as next of kin for one person.

“Jack...” Gwen turned, heart in her throat, but Jack was already gone, his footsteps rushed and stumbling, leading frantically towards the lift.

--------------------------------------------------

Jack Harkness hated hospitals; for places meant to save lives, he thought that they sure felt destitute of the vibrancy that life was all about. He hated how sterile, how somber, how desperately imposing, intimidating they seemed - they played at God, he thought, and it bothered him, because it was almost sort of true; they took the power out of his hands, something he felt naked, vulnerable without. They took the power to protect away from him, made him useless, and he couldn’t stand the feeling that he was failing the people he cared for most as their lives and deaths hung in the balance, held in the hands of strangers.

In a cruel twist of fate, he would this time have given anything to have entrusted the living, breathing love of his life, of all his lives, to their adept skill, their watchful care.

He hovered in the doorway of the morgue, unwilling to even look at the sheet-covered figure lying on the trolley, the only one in the room - wouldn’t admit that the lines of the linen, the protrusions weren’t just familiar - they were the same curves of his own body, the very indentations of his soul. He didn’t have to cross the distance to know what lay beneath.

But he did.

There was no dramatic peeling back of the starchy bedclothes, nothing slow or gradual; Jack tugged once, hard, at the painfully white sheet, revealing torn flesh in tiny circles, ripped through the perfect cheek, the flawless face, the beautiful chest of his beloved Ianto. And Jack, whose hands were full of his lover’s personal affects - his wrinkled suit jacket, his bloodied waistcoat, his wallet and keys - Jack could only manage to force past his lips one word, one single, anguished breath before the air left his lungs, before his heart shuddered dangerously beneath his ribs. “No.”

“No...” he trailed off, barely daring to touch Ianto’s motionless form, his hands only just grazing the edge of the sheet where it landed against his pale, too pale, skin. “No, not him. No.”

He heard Gwen’s heels approach in the hall, clicking all the way to the doorway, pausing there; her breath harsh and deafening in the silence as she stopped, her gaze heavy on where Jack was standing. His gaze, even as he spoke - half to the woman behind him, half to himself - never left Ianto’s face, his swollen-shut eyes. “No, he’s alright. He’s alright, see?” Jack bent closer, dropping his knees to the hard floor and bending over the body, whispering gently into his ear, pretending that there was breath lifting the shoulders his chin hovered near. “Ianto... Yan...”

Jack’s hand crept to the frozen arm closest to him, snapping back in shock at how firm, how cold it really was - so unlike the hands that had held him, had saved him. “Ianto, wake up.”

He heard - felt - Gwen stir behind him; desperate, he leaned closer, trying to imagine that Ianto’s hair wasn’t caked with dried blood, the platelets clumped together; trying to ignore how limp and dead the strands felt to the touch. “Yan?” Jack whispered, stroking at the waxy plane of his cheek, his voice close to breaking; “Yan, wake up.”

His head fell of its own accord onto the stiff mattress upon which his lover was stretched out, his muscles giving out as his vision blurred with tears, his voice cracking as he pleaded, “Ianto...”

He shifted closer, leaning down and pressing his lips to Ianto’s, which tasted nothing like him anymore and spurred his eyes to flood, teardrops landing on Ianto’s unresponsive mouth as Jack began to shake. “God...”

Jack lifted his weight so that he was looking straight at the lashes covering Ianto’s eyes, trying to maintain some hope that the slight motion of the individual hairs wasn’t solely the work of his own ragged breaths. “You can’t leave me...” Jack spoke softly, stoking at Ianto’s neck. “You’re not allowed to leave me.”

He slipped down, his head sliding onto Ianto’s naked chest, the shell of Jack’s ear rubbing against the bullet wound on the left side. “Don’t leave me here. I need you.”

Settling down onto Ianto’s torso, feeling the hollow emptiness, the silent, rhythmless void where a strong force of nature once beat out its battle cry, Jack felt his world crumble, his walls fall, and his entire being fall through the cracks. “I love you, Ianto Jones,” he whispered, his own chest heaving against Ianto’s side. “My heart belongs to you,” he breathed, words stalling and broken. “You can’t die if my heart belongs to you,” his fingernail traced the tiny circumference of the hole the bullet had made in his chest. “You can’t leave me here when I love you.”

Jack kissed at the wound above his lover’s heart, his tears wetting the blood that hadn’t been entirely washed away and trailing down in translucent streams of bronze. “I love you...” he breathed against the rivulets. “Fuck, I love you...”

He felt a hand on his back, but he didn’t turn, he couldn’t. “This isn’t real...” he whispered, the reality too difficult, too cataclysmic to acknowledge. “This isn’t happening...”

“Jack,” Gwen murmured from just behind him, her hand hard but attempting reassurance as she massaged gently down his spine.

“Jack, we have to take him back to the hub. We have to move the body.”

He was silent, motionless, staring vacantly at Ianto’s lifeless form; torn, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Jack, we -”

“Don’t, Gwen,” she stepped back at his tone; it was lethal, biting - a mate protecting his fallen partner - and Gwen wasn’t prepared for it. “Just don’t.”

“But Jack-” her own voice was breaking with the onset, but one of them had to stand strong, had to get the job done.

“He’s not a fucking corpse, Gwen,” Jack hissed, pressing harder with his torso into Ianto as he raised his head to better be heard. “He’s Ianto. Just... just... go.”

“But I-”

“Leave me alone, Gwen,” he moaned, barely noticing, not even caring anymore if she complied. “Go outside. Just...” his lips caught against the tepid skin of his lover, wetting the dead flesh as he felt her leave, felt all life drain from the room; “Go.”

He was left on his own as she departed, with only the soft body he was draped across, only the still eye sockets and the vacant lungs and the limp heart beneath his hands. “Come back, Yan,” he begged, trying to will whatever power he possessed to do his bidding, whatever life kept him going, kept bringing him back, would keep bringing him back to live this hell, this lonely, worthless hell, where he was abandoned, yet again, with his heart torn to shreds. “Come back.”

His entire body was shaking, his eyes burned as the tears kept flowing, as his hands strayed over Ianto’s arms, his fingers, pressing against his palms, Jack closed his eyes, and prayed, prayed with everything he was, to everything he didn’t know, muttering a chant, a quiet plea: “Please... please... I need to tell you. I never told you...”

Jack clenched his teeth, gathering Ianto’s hand in his, bending the hard, stiffened joints with care as he cradled their clasped hands to his chest. “Please...”

He didn’t have time to think, to even breathe, as he was thrown backwards by the jolt, the sheer momentum of a hand, a head, a whole upper body slamming against him, the electrical current of new life shocking, sparking through him like a storm, like a blaze, like the most exquisite hurricane; a spiral of hope, of the impossible coming to fruition.

“Jesus!” came a voice - Ianto’s voice; loud, hoarse, but undeniably his. Jack’s world stopped, narrowed and focused on the open, shining, beautiful, completely vibrant and lively eyes of Ianto; a Ianto who was, just moment before, very much dead.

“Fucking hell!” Jack yelped, torn between joy and fear, plastered awkwardly against the opposite wall, sprawled spread-eagled on the tile.

“That was a trip and a half,” Ianto muttered, seeming not to have quite noticed Jack’s presence, so entirely caught up in tracing the patterns of hairs and freckles on his arms, shaking down the sheet as he straightened, touching his chest, his forehead in wonder where there has been holes, deep, bloody, very real holes just moments before. “And not even a scar,” he marveled. “That’s magnificent.”

His eyes traveled around the room, shrewdly deducing his surroundings; his disgusted expression at finding himself in naked in the morgue fled and softened as his gaze settled on the stunned-still form of his boss, his lover. “Jack?”

White as a sheet, their roles reversed as Ianto’s blood rushed through him and flushed his skin with healthy color, Jack stared wide-eyed at him, the impossibility of his lover, the man in front of him whose breath he could hear, who couldn’t be the ghost he feared... couldn’t be... “I’ve gone mad,” Jack whispered, shocked and shaking minutely against the wall.

“Jack...” Ianto stood, pausing as he draped the sheet over his bare skin like a makeshift dressing gown, and approaching Jack with due care, apprehensive more for Jack’s sake than his own.

“I’ve lost it,” Jack murmured to himself, eyes never leaving Ianto as he walked forward, closing in on Jack. “I’ve finally lost it, haven’t I?”

“Jack,” Ianto’s face crumpled with concern, falling down to his knees and scrambling towards Jack, reaching out to comfort him, to hold him, but Jack flinched, not entirely of his own volition, leaving Ianto’s arms to meet empty air as they moved to embrace him. “No,” Ianto breathed, honest grief vivid on his features as he slowly withdrew his hands. “Please...”

“You were dead,” Jack just kept staring at him, as if he were a stranger, an apparition. “You were just dead.”

“Umm, yes,” Ianto shifted uncomfortably, leaning back on his haunches and distancing them from one another, this time of his own accord. “Yes, I suspect I was.”

Jack was looking at him in the strangest way, something in his gaze making the bottom of Ianto’s stomach fall out and his heart ache. “Ianto?” he asked, so lost and confused, so hopefully destroyed, that Ianto felt tears choke him at the sound alone.

“Jack, please,” Ianto’s body surged forward, his hands moving towards Jack’s shoulders, stopping midway and falling back to his sides dejectedly as he sucked in a deep breath, eyes flickering down before pinning onto Jack again. “Let me try to explain.”

“You’re...” Jack stared at him in amazement, seeming not to have heard a word he’d said, seeming not to care about explanations or practicalities, his mind single-tracked and undeviating. His hand reached out slowly, making tentative contact before committing to the touch, caressing Ianto’s cheek. “You’re... you’re alive?”

Ianto leaned into the careful touch, closing his eyes before bringing his hand to hold Jack’s into place. “It appears that way.”

Jack stilled, seeming to soak in the soft, echoing rhythm that hummed from Ianto’s skin, the life of him seeping through. “H-how?”

Ianto diverted his gaze, and Jack could feel the hitch in his breathing stutter through his whole body, out from his core. “Let’s go home. This is something I should have told you a long time ago,” Ianto suggested softly, the hint of resignation in his voice making Jack uneasy, though he was glad for it - that blessed voice could have damned him to hell and back, and he’d have called it divine, just to have had the opportunity to hear it again.

“But you,” Jack shook his head, not able to grasp it, not able to believe it was so; “You’re...”

“I’m fine,” Ianto assured him emphatically, spreading his arms and looking down to survey himself. “Look, see?”

Jack placed his hands on Ianto’s hips, first searching below them, and then above them, wondering at this miracle, his Ianto before him, apparently alive and well. “You’re fine.”

“Just fine,” Ianto repeated, reaching out to take Jack’s hand and bringing it to his mouth, kissing at the palm and trying to show Jack that he was solid and warm, unchanged and the same as ever.

“I...” Jack began, it all becoming too much, the emotion too strong. “I...”

“Come on, Jack,” Ianto murmured, brushing his thumb along Jack’s knuckles. “Send Gwen home for the day, and you and I will talk. I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

“I lost you, Ianto,” Jack said softly, his eyes wet once more. “I lost you.”

Ianto snaked his hand around Jack’s neck, pulling his head close, pressing their foreheads together, breathing in one another’s breaths. “But you found me again,” Ianto whispered, his lips moving against Jack’s just the slightest bit. “Just like you’re always going to find me.” He moved his cheek to slide against Jack’s, whispering directly into his ear, tightening his grip on Jack as he felt the older man tremble. “You’ll never lose me, Jack. Not forever.”

“You were cold,” Jack muttered brokenly, lowering his head onto Ianto’s shoulder, “You were so still.”

Speechless, Ianto simply held him closer, let Jack run his hands against his chest, lingering over the healed, unmarred skin above his heart, measuring the even beat beneath his palm before lacing his fingers through Ianto’s and breathing heavy into the side of Ianto’s neck, steadying himself against his lover’s ever-warming body before forcing past cracked, reluctant lips the only words that made any sense;

“It broke me.”

Ianto turned sympathetic eyes upon him, gaze bleeding with regret and pain. “Jack...”

Jack only shook his head, silencing Ianto as he took told of Ianto’s head, moving him with both hands to fit under his chin, pressed tight against Jack’s chest. “It broke my heart.”

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Ianto spoke into him, the honesty of his apology piercing and sudden. “I didn’t see them coming.”

And Ianto simply let Jack hold him, tight and hard, almost uncomfortable against the shaking, gasping flat of his torso, until his grip went slack, until the tension began to recede, until the sharp, staccato terror began to slip from his heartbeats.

“Let me take you home,” Ianto finally breathed, breaking the silence with a whisper that moved mountains. “Come on,” Ianto beckoned, rising to his feet and shrugging on the heap of wrinkled clothing, stiff with blood, that Jack had dropped to the floor what seemed at least a world apart from where they now stood. He reached out to Jack, his hand waiting in Jack’s line of sight. “Home.”

Ianto’s heart soared as Jack nodded and let Ianto pull him to his feet.

“Gwen,” Ianto called over to his friend and colleague where she was standing, looking stunned and rather out of place just outside the morgue. “S’your lucky day. Go surprise Rhys with a nice quiet afternoon, yeah? You deserve it.” He grinned at her, pulling Jack behind him gently by the hand as they made their way towards the signs pointing to the exit.

“Jack?” Gwen spluttered in complete and utter shock, and was graced with Jack sharing a meaningful glance with Ianto, who pulled away and let Jack retrace his steps back towards Gwen from the opposite end of the hall.

“Jack, is that really-” she began, breathless at the thought that it could be true, that Ianto was really there.

Jack smiled carefully, trying not to be too hopeful, but the glow behind his tired expression gave him away. “I think so.”

Gwen shook her head - it was hard enough making sense of Jack’s inability to die, but Ianto? It was too much. “How?”

Jack bit his lower lip, eyes scrunching at the corners as he glanced down the corridor to where his lover was waiting, reading some notice posted on the wall with casual interest, the blood on his shirt looking almost like an intentional pattern from the distance, the mistake making Jack’s stomach churn. He glanced sidelong at Gwen as he swallowed hard, his heart in his words as he answered her wide, questioning gaze as honestly as he possible could: “I... don’t know.”

--------------------------------------------------

It was more routine than actual will or intention that had Ianto brewing coffee when they returned to the Hub - he’d briefly entertained taking Jack back to his place, but knew that the Hub was more appropriate - they were on more even footing there, and if anyone claimed the upper hand, it was Jack; and Ianto wasn’t so blind, so selfish or naive as to be able to ignore the fact that regardless of everything, Jack deserved the even-footing this time around.

He’d changed his suit, stuffing his bloodied and torn clothing into the very bottom of his locker near the showers to be dealt with at a more appropriate time (the dry cleaner he used was going to start demanding hazard pay any day now, he was sure of it), and shrugging on an ensemble that looked almost identical, minus the bullet holes. It felt surreal, as if simply switching his outfit was like shrugging on a new dose of life, a brand new day - as if the suit covering his body now somehow separated him from where he’d been before - from the death and the blackness and the all-consuming cold.

He sighed deeply, slowing letting the air escap efrom his lips, marveling at the feel of it - familiar but somehow new in that moment; centering himself on the constant, impromptu rhythm of the bubbling coffee. Watching mindlessly while it finished brewing and pouring the drink into the oversized mug that he always served Jack’s caffeine in without a second thought, Ianto tried to remember to keep breathing as he walked towards the small sofa Jack was slouched upon, staring off into the ether, seeing nothing; it didn’t go unnoticed that he could have held his breath indefinitely and it would have made no lasting difference.

They spent a long chain of minutes in unnerving silence, Ianto seated across from Jack, hands steepled and chin perched on top, staring Jack down with a mild frown as Jack simply avoided his coffee like the motherfucking plague.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Ianto finally said, his voice soft, but a gunshot in the quiet, assaulting Jack’s eardrums and making him grimace at the pitch. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Yan,” Jack shook his head, studying the lines in his hands. “Don’t... don’t be sorry.” Really, how could he blame his lover for getting gunned down? It just didn’t seem right, no matter the circumstances; it ached in Jack’s chest, the very thought of it stale and bitter and poisonous. “Just...” he breathed, leaning over to catch Ianto’s hand, “be here. Tell me I’m not dreaming.” He squeezed at Ianto’s fingers, shutting his eyelids tight against whatever tears he had left for the day as they congregated near his lashes. “Tell me you’re real.”

Ianto broke at that, throwing all caution to the wind and moving to sit next to Jack, to draw him close and press him into him, to meld their bodies as best he could so that Jack could know, and not just be told, that Ianto was truly there; he recalled with great clarity when Jack had died that first time, and having to feel him, to know for himself before he could really believe in Jack’s return.

“I am real, Jack. I swear to you that I’m real,” he shuttled his hands up and down Jack’s shoulders, his arms. “How can I prove it to you, love?” he asked desperately, despairingly. “How can I make you see?”

“Just...” Jack began, his mouth dry, not prepared for the question, and not having any idea as to an answer. “Just...”

He quickly discovered that an answer was not what Ianto was asking for, that an answer wasn’t required, not in the verbal sense. Jack’s mind dissolved as Ianto pressed his lips against Jack’s, massaging the mouth against his own with the care of an artist, with the grace of an angel and the soft, unbridled passion of pleasure that Jack so longed for, that he’d never felt or received with such pure enthusiasm, such genuine and beautiful want before he’d met Ianto. Ianto’s tongue traced the cavernous line of Jack’s lips, which parted without delay and sucked him in hard, demanding; needing him, his presence. On an impulse, Ianto gathered Jack’s hands in his own and settled them in the center of his chest, letting Jack’s wrists bump with every shaky breath Ianto managed to fit in as he ravaged Jack’s mouth, fusing Jack’s palm to every strong and frenzied throb of his heart as he dueled with Jack’s tongue, lapping and nipping almost in time with his own pulse.

He was breathless, dizzy when they parted - he didn’t remember having kissed Jack like that for ages, not since the beginning when he’d had something to prove, so much as stake - and even then, it hadn’t been that perfect, that affecting, that world-changing. He looked at Jack, whose mouth was as swollen as his own must have been, red and shiny and wet, his chest heaving and his eyes glazed; it was a moment before those eyes cleared and became riveted on him.

Moving into the soft, plaintive touches Jack was administering down the length of his side, Ianto ended up nearly in Jack’s lap, Jack’s left hand toying repeatedly with the same strand of his hair, near the nape of his neck as he held Ianto against him, held his face close to his own, their noses pressed together at the tips and Jack’s right hand tracing the outlines of Ianto’s cheekbones, the arch of his eyebrows. “How are you real?” he breathed softly, Jack’s pulse leaping in his throat, visible as Ianto raised eyes to Jack’s gaze.

“The Doctor,” Ianto whispered softly, simply. “Your Doctor.”

Jack jerked a bit, his face aghast as his gaze snapped violently towards Ianto in shock. “The Doctor?”

Ianto nodded solemnly, jaw set as he began. “I ran into him, one night. Or rather, he ran into me,” he sighed at the memory. “I was angry, I was hurt; it was right after Tosh and Owen, and I was still grieving... I said some things.” He caught Jack’s hand, pulling it away from his neck and holding onto it for dear life. “I told him it wasn’t fair, the way you were, having to lose everything, lose everyone. You didn’t deserve it. You don’t.” He leaned in to nuzzle at Jack’s jaw line affectionately, relishing the feel, the absolutely astounding ability of being able to do it again, of being able to ignore the laws of nature, to bleed his last and breathe his final, and yet still feel his breath stolen and his blood rushing from just being near his Jack.

“You met the Doctor?”

“He agreed with me,” Ianto spoke into Jack’s throat, his lips moving with the words against Jack’s pulse point.

Jack stilled, his heart leaping beneath the press of Ianto’s mouth as he gasped just slightly. “He did?”

“Yes. That’s why he helped.” Ianto pulled away, playing idly with Jack’s fingers, lilting over them in turn before folding them over his own and running them along his cheek. “That’s why, that’s how.”

“I wanted to help you. I wanted to make sure you were never alone again. He took me to the Gamestation, to Satellite 5. He left me there, he let me die. He made me like you.”

Jack’s stare was vacant, comprehending but not believing, and Ianto supposed he couldn’t have realistically hoped for any better reaction; from where Ianto was sitting, Jack could probably have raged at him and banished him from his presence for the rest of time, and been at least somewhat justified.

Instead, Jack just tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, his face filled with just-restrained pain, brimming with the aches of more lifetimes than most. “Why?” he asked, all the heart-wrenching, twisting, lethal agony that Jack’s curse of immortality had brought down upon him fused into that single word. “Why would you want this?”

Ianto found the easiest answer was the most truthful, and it flowed from him as only the pure will of the soul can - uninhibited, and without any contemplation; natural and filled with heart:

“Because I love you, Jack Harkness,” he stated simply, smiling bright and open as Jack tensed at the words, scared out of his wits but wanting, needing to continue, needing him to know it. “I love you with every breath in my body. And it kills me to see you so sad, so lost. When you’re hurting, it destroys me.”

It was now Jack’s turn to grasp onto Ianto like a lifeline, to hold to him and dig hard, white crescents into his joints with his fingernails. “You... you did that? For me?”

Ianto smiled again, softer now, his eyes shining as he dropped a gentle kiss onto Jack’s upper lip. “Is there any better reason?”

He rested his forehead against Jack’s, running the pad of his thumb over the half-circles of Jack’s cuticles as he spoke. “I tried to tell you, so many times. But I was always afraid...” he shook his head, tried to clear it. “I couldn’t. I knew I should, I knew, but I was scared.” He pulled back, eyes apprehensive, pleading as he stared into Jack. “Forgive me.”

Jack shook his head, pressing his lips to Ianto’s temple, silently dismissing the need for apology as he asked, voice tense and almost fearful himself; “Scared of what?”

Ianto ducked away from him, and Jack’s chest clenched as he saw the genuine discomfort, the apprehension in his lover. Ianto was apparently now just as undying as he was, cut from the same mold as Jack himself - what on earth could he have to fear from Jack, the one person in the entire world who would not only understand, but would sympathize, empathize, and love him nonetheless?

“Yan?” he repeated, concern lacing every letter. “Scared of what?”

Ianto sighed, drawing away from Jack and sitting with his knees bent, head in his hands as he tried to articulate the indescribable torrent of emotions he’d been dealing with over the past months. “Rejection? Resentment? Both, maybe?” Ianto threw out, frustrated and embarrassed and still just as fearful of those same things as he’d always been. “I didn’t know how you’d react. I didn’t know if you’d want this,” he gestured to himself, swallowed hard as he choked out the more truthful version of that sentence; “Want me.” He chuckled darkly, self-deprecatingly, avoiding Jack’s gaze as best as he could. “One man for all of eternity isn’t quite your style after all, now, is it? But it was selfish, not to tell you. I let you suffer; you saw me dead, and I left you thinking it was permanent...” Ianto shuddered as his own memories surfaced. “And I will never forget how that felt, the first time I saw you die, thinking you were gone for good. I’m sorry I was a coward. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“You can’t die.” Jack’s voice was stoic, quiet but unwavering, unmoving, and Ianto kept his eyes aimed at the ground.

“The evidence is pointing to that, yeah.”

“You were there? You were there, with the Daleks?”

Ianto nodded stiffly at the interesting pattern in the flooring. “I was.”

There was a gap of silence, and in it Ianto suddenly raised his eyes to look at Jack, fixing him with a fond smile. “You were brilliant, you know,” he beamed, recalling the image of the young man named Jack Harkness who took that Satellite by storm, and how his heart had swelled with pride at just watching it take place. “It took every ounce of will power that I posses to keep from coming up to you, to keep from just speaking to you, to hear your voice close to me.”

Jack met his gaze, something close to shock, to wonder, to utter disbelief dripping from his glance as he spoke, scratchy and uneven; “You died there. You died there for me.”

“Yes. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Jack sucked in a shallow breath, letting his eyes flutter closed as he tried to piece together all the parts, tried to make the full picture out of the fragments. “You’re immortal.”

“So far as I can tell.”

Ianto’s heart was racing, strangling him and fueling his utter terror that Jack wouldn’t appreciate Ianto’s interference in his life, Ianto’s cavorting with his Doctor, Ianto’s presumption that Jack would even want someone like him hanging around like a lost pet, Ianto’s utter lack of nerve in being unable to face these consequences head on from the start. “Say something, Jack,” he choked out; half a laugh, half a sob.

Jack looked up at Ianto, lips framed by the salty trails of tears that had already come and gone. “I’ve been wrestling with my own sort of secret, you know,” he confessed softly, offering Ianto a halfhearted smile as he turned to him, tucking his foot beneath him and shifting to face him head on. “Trying to tell you something, never quite managing. Afraid of the risk.” He let loose a hearty, ironic sort of laugh that cut Ianto to the core. “Hell; if you’re a coward, Ianto, then so am I. The blackest, foulest kind of coward.”

Ianto hadn’t been expecting that; in fact, he’d been expecting anything but that. He reached out without a second thought, taking Jack’s hand in his own, holding it tight, anchoring them both.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out for months,” Jack picked up once more, “trying to decide whether it would change anything; knowing that it would - how could it not?” His throat closed up suddenly and he licked his lips nervously, eyes darting around before finding Ianto again. “Trying to decide whether it was worth it, because it would hurt either way, with or without the rejection. It would hurt so much more than anything else, so much more than anything I’ve ever known; I knew that, but I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know. You deserved to know.”

Ianto could feel his stomach churning, his heart a battering ram against his rib cage; what could possibly be so terrible a secret that Jack, of all people, would have feared trusting him with it?

“So I’ve been beating myself up,” Jack rambled on, though Ianto only heard parts of it, enough to make out the idea, but not the details, his mind elsewhere, lost in desperate and hostile possibilities. “Telling myself to stop being such a pansy-ass, to suck it up and be a man, to tell you to your face, instead of every time I watched you sleep, or under my breath so you’d never hear the words.” Ianto frowned; he didn’t like where this was heading. “I kept reminding myself that it was you - you, my Ianto - and you would still be here, even after I said it. And in the end, I kept telling myself that it would be worth it; that you were worth it.”

Ianto didn’t know for certain whether he imagined the hint of accusation in Jack’s tone, the edge of disappointment and betrayal - whether it was valid or a figment of his mind, his guilt manifesting itself before him in the one place it could tear him to shreds, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance either way. “Please, Jack...” he pleaded, his words harsh and rough in his throat, deeper than normal as he clasped Jack’s hands a little tighter. “Please don’t hate me for this.”

Jack’s head snapped up, eyes incredulous as his jaw fell open, uncomprehending. “Hate you?” he asked, his tone dubious. “Hate you? I love you, Ianto Jones. More than I thought I was capable of loving anything or anyone. And I have for a very long time.”

There was a long pause, one in which Ianto sat as still as he had when death had taken him just that morning; his entire concept of reality reduced to the single strand of words that had just left the full, pink lips of one Jack Harkness, turning his entire being right side up for the first time in years.

Jack’s patience, Jack’s pride was beginning to wear thin, and his voice was equally frail as he asked weakly of his quiet lover; “Ianto?”

Ianto whipped his head around to stare Jack in the eyes, demanding a single thing without emotion, his voice soft and far away. “Say that again.”

Jack swallowed; he may not have gotten a response, an equally stirring reassertion of his lover’s devotion, but he did have something that his Ianto had asked of him, and today of all days, Jack wasn’t looking to deny his beloved. “I love you,” he repeated firmly, infusing the words with all of the emotion, all of the heart that he could manage. “I am in love with you. You make my days worth getting up for. You make my life worth sticking it out to live. You make me feel worthwhile.” He reached out to bring Ianto’s hand to his mouth, grazing his teeth on Ianto’s knuckles as he kissed each finger between the words. “I’ve lived a very long time, and I’ve loved a lot of people. But...” He pressed a slow kiss to the center of the back of Ianto’s hand, tracing the almost-visible blue of his veins with the tip of his tongue. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who makes me feel so alive, who makes my heart just... leap, in my chest, like some sordid romance novel,” the smile that graced Jack’s features, lit them up like the sun in the sky, was unconscious and innocent, the gleam in his eye making Ianto’s soul feel light; “not until you.”

“When I saw you on that table...” Jack’s voice grew tired, strained with emotion; “when I couldn’t feel you anymore; it was like I couldn’t breathe. It hurt, so much, I... and it didn’t matter that I hadn’t told you, hadn’t said it, hadn’t screamed from every rooftop in Cardiff that I loved you - it still made me wish I were dead, knowing that you were gone. And... if you had been dead, if you hadn’t, hadn’t...” He brought his hands slowly up Ianto’s limbs, tracing every living, breathing inch of him before cupping his hands under Ianto’s chin.

“You never would have known,” Jack finally breathed against him, searching Ianto’s eyes for some reaction, some honest, heartfelt reply. “You’d never have known that from the moment I saw you, I wanted you. That from the very first time, I knew we were more than a casual fling, I knew from the tug in my chest, from the warmth... I knew. You’d never have known that falling in love with you has been the most beautiful thing I’ve felt in decades, centuries... maybe ever. That you light up a room because you’re brilliant and you’re beautiful and you’re radiant, and because I love you. God, I love you.” His lips were trembling as he poured his soul out to the man he held, watched as Ianto’s mouth parted, a tiny sound coming from him before his lips were firmly closed again, the precarious strings holding Jack’s heart in place straining more with every moment that Ianto said nothing, did nothing, refused to acknowledge his words.

“Yan,” Jack whispered, desperately running his fingers around the curve below his earlobe. And then in an instant, in the most frantic and dangerous of heartbeats, Ianto’s lips were crushed against his own.

The kiss was exquisite, the type that stopped Ianto’s heart and let him feed solely off of Jack’s pulse, Jack’s breath, Jack’s life, if only for an instant. It was hard and filled with longing, this kiss - it was brimming with sorrow and fear and all of the lost opportunities they’d both been too blind and too stupid, too careful to take, but it was more than that; more than their regrets and the relief that they were behind them. No, the kiss was nearly pulsating with the sheer power of emotion that was flowing from them both in waves; in the way they locked eyes, in the way they touched and held on, in the way their breaths came quicker when they sat side by side - this kiss was a celebration, and a promise; a devotion of one heart, one life, to another, one that didn’t need words or symbols, one that only needed love; something of which they both had plenty to spare.

“There is so much that I don’t know, Jack,” Ianto panted against him, his breath hot on Jack’s skin after they’d parted. “There are so many things I think I know, for so long, only to have them shattered into illusion in an instant. I...” his breathing hitched, and Jack leaned forward running soft, lilting kisses down his jaw as he steadied his lungs. “I don’t know if there are such things as fate, or destiny, or all that rot. But I think...” he smiled brilliantly, the beauty of it enough to break Jack’s heart and piece it back together all at once as Ianto’s own tears dried on his face, shimmering in the lamplight; “I think you might be the other half of my soul.”

Jack smiled into another kiss, sealing his lips to Ianto’s mouth fiercely, pouring his own soul into the task, the joy of it. “You’ve given me such a gift, Ianto,” he whispered passionately, stoking delicately at Ianto’s face, brushing his fingers over his chest. “You’re such a treasure.”

Bending down to kiss the soft bud of Ianto’s nipple through his shirt, lingering as his tingling lips vibrated with the tempo of Ianto’s heart, Jack spoke soft and firm into Ianto’s chest, kissing his way upwards, along his collar, up to the tip of his nose. “Thank you, Ianto. I can’t think of someone else I’d rather spend the rest of my days with.” He drew away, and just gazed at his lover, taking him in, seeing every stunning detail of him in a new and glowing light. “I’m not sure you’ll ever quite understand what this means to me, but I swear to every power in this universe that I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of it. Of you.”

“You already are,” Ianto assured him with the loyalty of a soldier he’d always had, but now with something more, something deeper - the devotion of a lover, the assurance of the heart that was trusted above instinct and reason. Jack reveled silently in the peace it brought him, knowing that he was not only capable of having that sort of love, but that he’d somehow managed to secure it, in the form of the most perfect man he’d ever known; and he’d been lucky enough to love him more than life in return. “You’re what I want, what I need,” Ianto pulled Jack closer to him, kissing him soundly and pressing his palm against Jack’s, lining up their hands and studying the fit. “I am yours, Jack. Thick and thin, better or worse, I am yours. Forever.”

A forever, stretching towards infinity, that meant something now that it never had before.